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tv   Weekends With Alex Witt  MSNBC  April 20, 2013 9:00am-11:00am PDT

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or if you have symptoms such as persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. since enbrel helped relieve my joint pain, it's the little things that mean the most. ask your rheumatologist if enbrel is right for you. [ doctor ] enbrel, the number one biologic medicine prescribed by rheumatologists. on guard. dozens of police surround the hospital where one of the suspected boston bombers remains in serious condition. when will officials begin to question him and what will they ask? look who is talking. the mother of the two propterro suspec suspects, that's who. and you may not have heard about this. the bombing has created huge chatter on terror websites. we'll hear from richard engel in minutes on that.
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hello, everyone, it's high noon in the east, 9:00 a.m. out west. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." joe har tsarnaev is in the hospital at this hour after he was caught by police. the next phase of the case begins. the very complex legal process. an obama administration official telling nbc news tsarnaev will not be given a miranda warning when he's physically able to be interrogated after receiving medical treatment. instead, the official says the government will invoke a legal rule known as the public safety exception. that will allow investigators to question tsarnaev without first advising him of his right to remain silent and be afforded legal counsel. president obama used his weekly address today to praise law enforcement and those involved in tracking tsarnaev down. >> americans refused to be terrorized. ultimately, that's what we'll remember from this week. that's what will remain, the stories of heroism and kindness, resolve and resilience,
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generosity, and love. >> authorities caught up with the suspect after a tip from a watertown resident. he was hiding in a boat parked outside a home. he is now in a boston hospital and nbc's ron allen is joining me from there. ron, with a good afternoon to you, let's get the very latest on his condition. are you getting word from the hospital or are they staying somewhat silent on that? >> reporter: absolutely silent, alex. they're basically saying ask the fbi, ask the police about that, and they are saying nothing as well. it's a very tight lid on top of any information about him so far today. that could change perhaps, but you have to understand and, of course, you do, that this is a very, very delicate and sensitive situation and so it seems unlikely that the doctors are going to tell us a lot about what his condition is, particularly as you were saying how investigators want to question him as soon as they can. we do know that he was brought here last night in serious condition is the word that was used by the boston police commissioner. we understand that he was bleeding heavily, that he had
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been wounded -- we don't know at what point in the 20 hours or so that he was on the run that that injury happened. we also were told and understand that he was somewhat incoherent when the police confronted him and tried to communicate with him. but the extent of that is unclear at this point. what will they ask him? obviously, trying to figure out, first, to make sure there are no other devices out there, that there are no other accomplices or people who helped him in some way either planning or carrying out the bombing or subsequent to that as he was trying to run away and hide. so a wide range of things investigators will, of course, want to get at. when they will begin that process is unclear though. alex? >> is this the same hospital where his older brother was pronounced dead and also the same hospital where the mbta authority police officer was treated? >> it is the same hospital his brother was pronounced dead.
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richard donahue is at a different hospital in cambridge and his condition as we understand it is somewhat dire. the last word we had was he was critical, that he was fighting for his life essentially. he was wounded in the chase after the killing of the m.i.t. police officer, sean collier. and an interesting twist in that is that collier and donahue apparently knew each other well. they were good friends according to one colleague. they had participated in the police academy at the same time and graduated about three years ago together. so they knew each other in this small world that this whole crazy situation was unfolding in. just one very odd coincidence and thing that they had in common. >> yeah. very tragic. okay ron allen, that you have so much outside beth israel medical center. i'm joined by nbc news national investigative correspondent michael isikoff. michael, with a welcome to you, let's get to who gets to question tsarnaev and does that
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happen while he's still in the hospital? what do you know on that? >> reporter: well, first of all, we understand that charges -- criminal charges may be filed against him as early as today. possibly this afternoon. we're waiting to hear on that. which does make this a bit tricky because normally in a criminal process you are entitled to be read your rights, you're entitled to know that you have a right to counsel, and, instead, as you have indicated, the administration is going to invoke the just -- the justice department is going to invoke that public safety exception to the miranda rights and try to question him by its special intelligence team without informing him of his rights to lawyers and there's already some pushback on that. the aclu, i just got a statement from them saying that this is a denial of rights to an american citizen. it's un-american, and we have to be very cautious about how much
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latitude we give the administration -- give the government on this. >> michael, but can i ask you, the part they will ask him about, it's only relative to the safety of the citizens of boston and anyone in a related community, right? they have to see if he's put explosives places, and they will question him without an attorney until they feel that they have the full results of -- you know, they have dotted every "i," crossed every "t," right? after that is when he must be mirandized? >> right. there's this limited period that they can question him. and you're absolutely right. there are real questions about whether there are other ieds out there that need to be found for the safety of the people of boston. so one question here is, you know, what is the extent of the questioning that this intelligence team is going to do?
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because clearly they were set up for intelligence purposes, not just for finding ieds, for finding who his potential accomplices were, was he working with any -- under instructions from anybody else, all extremely legitimate questions, but they also are questions that by its very nature would be self-incriminating. anything he says along those lines, i was working with somebody, jeopardizes his own constitutional rights to remain silent. so all i'm saying is there are a lot of questions about the latitude and scope of this kind of questioning and there is going to be pushback about it. it's going to be very controversial. >> michael, quickly, getting word that the fbi had his brother on their radar since 2011. what do you know about that? >> reporter: yeah. a rather interesting statement from the fbi this morning that they had gotten a report from a foreign intelligence agency about tamerlan as early as 2011
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and actually investigated him, questioned him about radical jihadi sympathies. it came from the russian intelligence service, and the fbi says they found no evidence of criminal activities and basically let the matter stand. now, what's interesting is in january of 2012, after getting that report, after doing that investigation, he flies to russia for six months. and then returns to the country and then shortly thereafter sets up this youtube account filled with radical jihadi postings clearly indicative of sympathies with that cause. now, that's not evidence of a crime. that doesn't trigger necessarily any charges, but it's going to raise questions about what the fbi knew and when they knew it. >> okay. michael isikoff, thanks so much. please stay put because next i'm going to ask you about any other accomplices and what officials are saying today about that. thanks, michael. let's get more on the
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suspects' international links. i'm joined by richard engel. we're glad you're here. >> thank you. >> i loved what you said on "rock center" last night, fascinating about how this has all sparked so much on terrorist jihadi websites. talk about that. >> well, all day yesterday while the city of boston was covered with police and they were sweeping house to house, there are jihadi chat forums. these are chat rooms, sometimes they're password protected, other times you just need to know where they are, and there are a lot of al qaeda sympathizers, people who believe in the cause, believe the united states is on a crusade against islam, and they were very much celebrating what was going on in boston because they were filled with statements like look at what the united states government is spending, all the millions of dollars on security that are being wasted, look at the people who are being locked
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into their homes and are cowering in fear, and the general consensus was that these two brothers were more or less lone wolves, that they weren't part of a major organization, that there was not a group in chechnya that deployed them and sent them as a sleeper cell and pushed a button to activate them. they were people who were self-inspired by the cause and these jihadi chat rooms thought it was great and encouraged people to do the same. on "rock center" what i mentioned to brian last night was what was really important was when this was all finished. it was a spontaneous applause, and the people came out of their houses, and think weren't terrorized, and they looked very relaxed, and there were a lot of statements like we're not accepting to be terrorized. we were told to go inside because we were told and now we're going to applaud the police. and that's a message that i'm
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sure they didn't intend to send, but it was directly in contrast to what these forums were saying all day, that the people were, you know, effectively broken down and emotionally caput and, instead, they were out celebrating. >> but did that then quiet the terrorist websites? >> no. no, that's not going to -- they are focused on their own internal dialogue and they encourage themselves. no, so it's not going to quiet them but it will quiet some. it offers counter proof and that's always an important thing. is it going to convince these people that they were wrong? no, of course not. but it does at least offer concrete proof in pictures that the idea that, you know, boston was destroyed by these two young men, which is clearly the narrative they want to portray, was not true. >> in and of itself, the fact that tamerlan spent six months between january and july of last year overseas, that can be
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innocent enough -- >> i spent six months overseas. people travel all the time. >> absolutely. >> but what's more suspicious is all of their internet trail. the fbi and the russian intelligence were aware of all of their activities, and so when you put all the pieces together, yes -- >> what were some of the pieces? >> we spent a lot of time looking at that yesterday. these -- this youtube channel that michael was just talking about. it's very sympathetic to let's call them radical islamic causes. the same kind of terminology that is used by al qaeda sympathizers. same kind of stuff you find in these chat rooms. now, that's not illegal. you can believe that if you want. there's nothing wrong with just believing it. but if you're on a watch list and you have this ideology and suddenly you disappear in
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chechnya and dagestan for six months, that combination would probably you would think trip some wires. but evidently it didn't. >> richard engel, as always, a pleasure. thanks so much for seeing us. >> my pleasure. >> the mother of the bombing suspects is talking and saying that her sons were framed. she suggesting something remarkable about the fbi. her words next. pleasure. vo: from the classic lines to the elegant trim in each and every piece, bold will make your reality
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he was controlled by fbi like for five, three, five years. they knew what my son was doing. they knew what actions and what the sites on the internet he was going. they used to come home, they used to come and talk to me. they used to tell me that, you know, that they are controlling
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his -- they were telling me that he is really a terrorist leader and they are afraid of him. >> that is tamerlan tsarnaev's mother saying the fbi monitored him forself years essentially, his every move. is that true and if so why? joining me is clark kent irvin. with a big welcome to you, so glad you're here, because as we listen to what the mom is saying, do you believe it or do you think she may have mistaken the world controlled for being observed by or watched by? >> i think that's exactly right, alex. i'm sure she was mistaken. we know that the russians apparently, a foreign intelligence service, reached out to the american government to find out information about this person. they had some concerns about him. and they ran to ground the information that they had in their databases, did not ultimately question him themselves, and didn't find anything to indicate he was a terrorist and surely that's what his mother is talking about. >> is that unusual for a foreign
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government like that, intelligence and foreign government to reach out, or is that exactly what we do? >> no, that's exactly what happens, and, of course, as others have pointed out, there's not the best relationship between the united states and russia, between president obama and president putin but there's been close cooperation in counterterrorism. whatever our differences on iran and syria, missile defense, as far as terrorism is concerned, we have a common objective and so this is not at all vicing to me. >> how often does something like this happen? >> i think it happens all the time. it's a big world out there. it's an international world meaning that people travel about, and so we need to leverage other intelligence services and they need to leverage us. it happens as a matter of are you teen. >> do you think the fbi would have looked at him monitored him for a bit, done some questioning, and dismissed him or would he have stayed on their radar? >> that's a good question. we're going to find that out. my bet is he would have stayed on their radar screen. it would be noteworthy that the
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rugs would have asked questions about him. there are reasons no doubt why they asked the questions. we understand that once we did our interviews, the united states government did, we went back to the russians and said tell us more about what occas n occasions you're interested in and we never heard back. and we dropped the case officially. that's not to say we didn't keep our radar screen on him. the fbi i'm sure is going back to see if there's anything they missed. obviously there are intensive discussions under way with the russian government to try to find out more. >> when you look, clark, at severing that happened as a result of two men and then one man, the way a huge metropolis gets shut down, the amtrak corridor shut down, the money lost, all of that, is this indicative of what lone wolves can do or did we fail in some way to protect against something like this? >> it's interesting, those are two really different questions. as to the failure, i don't really think so, alex. this was not just a soft target, the boston marathon.
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but it was a really soft target. it was an open venue. it was 26 miles and there's really no way, certainly no way in an open, free society like ours to lock that down. we understand there were sweeps along the marathon route not just in the days leading up to the marathon but in the hours leading up to the marathon. on the other hand though, the fact that two people and ultimately one person can lock down an entire city, cost this amount of money, and more importantly cause this degree of anxiety i fear will embolden other terrorists to think it's almost impossible to carry out a 9/11-style attack now. that's the good news, but it's relatively easy to carry out a soft target attack and you can kill a lot of people. you can injury a lot of people and you can terrorize other people. i think ultimately the best antidote to it is what richard engel was just talking about, and that is the way the boston community came together, the way the full weight of the united states government was brought to bear to help the boston police department in this instance. the seamless cooperation.
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all of that is tremendous message to the terrorists that as the president said this morning on his radio address, america will not be terrorized. >> and essentially this morning everyone is back to normal, right? >> exactly. >> there you go. clark kent irvin, thank you very much. many unanswered legal questions today. why didn't the police read the suspect his miranda rights and how much can they talk with him in the hospital? meanwhile this headline in "the boston globe," nightmare's end and it sums up the sentiment perfectly. a wave of relief after such a harrowing week. harrowing week.
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starts with ground beef, onions and peppers baked in a ketchup glaze with savory gravy and mashed russet potatoes. what makes stouffer's meatloaf best of all? that moment you enjoy it at home. stouffer's. made with care, for you or your family. new insight this hour into how police found marathon bombing suspect dzhokhar tsarnaev in waterton, massachusetts. the stepson of the man who found him on the boat spoke with lester holt on the "today" show. >> david was walking around in the backyard. he noticed as the wind had picked up that the tarp was loose on the boat, which was not
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normal. walked over for a closer glimpse and noticed one of the retention straps had been cut. it hadn't worn, it hadn't come free. it was literally cut. there was a small amount of blood on the tarp from what i understand. he then took his stepladder that he used to usually inspect the boat -- >> didn't dawn on him that somebody might be in him. >> no one and one made two at that point. >> what does he see? >> he looks inside just under the tarp, ceasees a small pool blood. >> pretty extraordinary. what happened next prompted all these headlines pretty much everywhere across the country. the san francisco chronicle has the the the headline week of terror ends. and the daily courier has simply "we got him." joining me is michael sul vlivs i want to talk about something i
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got in terms of a note that was handed to me talking about a few senators, lindsey graham, john mccain, kelly ayotte, congressman peter king, all of whom have said this suspect based on his actions clearly is a good candidate for enemy combatant status. we do not want this suspect to remain silent. talk about that in terms of what prosecutors are doing right now. is that the path down which prosecutors and any investigators are going right now? >> well, it's unclear whether or not they're going down that path to identify and designate him as an enemy combatant but they should at least go down the path to determine whether or not that is the designation they should make for this particular person. then they should do it based on our national security, national interest to determine whether or not identifying him as an enemy combatant will actually enhance our national security and national interest. >> what about the charges? what do you expect them to be against dzhokhar.
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>> well, if he's not designated as an enemy combat eant he wille charged federally. the first decision has to be if he's designated enemy combatant. if they decline, they'd be looking at charges around terrorism related offenses, likely oferss that deal with weapons of mass destruction because the bombs that they used are considered weapons of mass destruction and also the manufacturing and transport of the bombs themselves. as a result of death occurring, he's likely to be facing the death penalty and he should if they bring federal charges. >> but, michael, if not designated an enemy combatant, that means this case gets tried in civilian court, right? and to that end finding a jury pool alone seems next to
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impossible. >> no, they would certainly be able to find a jury pool that would at least have an open mind in terms of the presumption of innocence for the defendant. it's not that they have to find a jury pool that's never heard of the case. they have to find a jury pool that has not formed an opinion as a result in terms of the guilt of the defendant. >> and speaking of giluilt, michael a lot of speculation dzhokhar was under the influence of his older brother. if that's the caseworks it impact the way he gets prosecuted? >> it may in terms of the defenses that get raised, particularly around mitigation. assuming for a second that the federal charges and the government is seeking the death penalty, likely the defense team would argue around mitigation, that somehow he was improperly influenced by the brother. you know, the government i suspect will show significant
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evidence to combat that type of defense of mitigation around influence of the older brother. >> when you look at how this all went down, all of the agencies working together, anything you look at and say, if i had this to do over again in terms of organization, i would do this differently? >> well, from my perspective looking at it from the outside in, it seems to me that all the things were put in place post 9/11 as relates to collaboration and cooperation. the efforts of the joint terrorism task force and the anti-terrorism advisory council and all the training that's gone in place since 9/11 seems to work -- seemed to work out exceptionally well. also in terms of engaging the public. they engaged the public and the public became critically important in terms of identifying the suspects and the capture of the younger brother. >> yeah. in fact, once they released the
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video and those photos of the two suspects, things started going awry within five hours. do you think they should have released that information sooner? >> i wouldn't want to second guess that decision at this moment in time. i know the people who do this work and i know they were absolutely committed to locate and capture these suspects as quickly as possible because they were concerned about public safety. obviously they believed earlier on they were going to be able to do it without putting out the to he toes. putting out the photos tips the two suspects off, puts them potentially in a flight status. i suspect that the fbi and others who were engaged in this investigation were trying to avoid that. they get to a point in time where they realize the public assistance was critically important. >> michael, boston is your city. what did this week tell you about your hometown? >> i'm sorry? >> your hometown of boston, the experience there this week, what did it tell you about the people of boston?
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>> well, i mean, they're just special people. they rallied around one another. you know, our hearts broke monday afternoon when we saw the horror that occurred at such a glorious event on such a spectacular day. we thought -- our first thoughts were certainly with the victims, those that died and their families and those that suffered and continue to suffer. but it's a city that essentially rallies itself. it's the strength of the city of boston and the commonwealth of massachusetts. people came together for the good of, you know, others that had been hurt and importantly came together to try to help the police and the agents solve this case and it's a real credit to the community. >> indeed it is. michael sullivan, many thanks for your time. >> thanks, alex. how does the city of london play into the boston bombing drama? for one very significant reason and we're going to take you there live. ] your favorite foods fighting you? fight back fast with tums.
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we're learning new details
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today about the suspects in the boston marathon bombing. ja h dzhokhar tsarnaev is listed in serious condition after he was taken into custody. the 19-year-old was found hiding in a boat parked outside a watertown home and there are new suspicions his older brother, who died in the shootout with police early friday morning, could have received terrorist training or support abroad. an official familiar with the matter tells nbc news that a foreign government has expressed concern back in 2011 that tamerlan tsarnaev could have ties to terrorism. the official says the fbi investigated but found no such links and reported the findings back to that foreign government. let's bring in msnbc analyst and former hostage negotiator james cavanagh. james, thanks for joining me again and great work yesterday through all of the mayhem, but i'm curious about the frequency with which we get a warning from a foreign government about someone who is here in our country that potentially has ties to terrorism.
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>> you know, that stuff does come in to federal agencies all the time really, alex. on a variety of criminal matters. not only terrorism. we frequently in atf got interpol inquiries and foreign police inquiries on people about firearms and explosive matters. the fbi clearly gets the terrorism matters or there may be some type of kidnapping case in the criminal sphere. there's a lot of communication worldwide with law enforcement. a lot of it goes through interpol. a lot of it is through partner countries, you know. we deal directly with like the metropolitan police in scotland yard a lot of times or, you know, other authorities. so it's not unusual for the request to come in. it's usually sorted out. there's interviews conducted, investigation. depending on what the country is, the information is shared, maybe shared completely or maybe limited but it's pretty routine. >> what about as you look at this incident overall, james. is there anything for a takeaway here? might this information be able to thwart an attack like this in
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the future? >> clearly that's the goal. i mean, i think it's always about the next attack. i mean, we can't just look back and that's what the intelligence experts are talking about, roger cress, he's been talking about it today and all the experts. they want to gather all this information, put to together, and then try to stop the next attack. you know,eneding t understandin bombers, their contacts and networks and trying to interrupt them every time we can. we've had great success since 9/11 in the u.s. because of the whole governmentwide system of trying to thwart these attacks but here in boston they got through, and we've got to learn how did they get through, let's do more and stop the next one. >> but james, they got through, they may have been lone wolves. i mean, talk about that. it feels like a needle in a haystack trying to track that down. >> well, it is, but, you know, this guy was a needle in a haystack.
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he had come up and been interviewed by agents before, but they probably didn't have enough to be able to do anything. he's an american citizen and, you know, if there's no evidence against you, the government is not going to start arresting you. so they come up, we've got to have trip wires, we've got to have ways where we can address who they are and what they may be doing. it's a difficult thing to balance our freedoms in a democracy and our need for safety. so it's always complicated, and we can't get every one but we've got to really try to get every one. >> you know, behind the scenes while he was sitting on the set, richard engel and i were talking about the discussion about this, putting all this out there in terms of its inspiring copycat attacks. does that concern you? do you think there will be those that look at this and say it was successful despite the fact that boston has rebounded and the american spirit was alive and well last night in really very rigorous ways. >> i seen richard, i think he's very insightful on that.
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like he talked about the celebration and how the al qaeda would read it. i think he's exactly right on that. but there's so many killers worldwide that want to attack the u.s., i don't know that we're going to make more of them. there's a lot of them. they want to penetrate the u.s. they want to hurt the u.s. they've not been that successful, and i think that sometimes their means are limited to get in. if we look back at the string of bombers, you just had mike sullivan on. he prosecuted richard reid, the shoebomber. abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber, he flubbed the bomb. the new york police and fbi interrupted a plot. there's been successes along the way and many others. so, you know, it's just a matter of we have to keep trying, we have to keep the resources going and always look forward. >> see something, say something for the public. that's for sure.
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james cavanagh, always a pleasure. thanks so much. >> thanks. new words from president obama today on the bombing. joining me now nbc news white house correspondent kristin welker. i know the president was addressing the bombing in his weekly address. what did he say about it? >> reporter: well, alex, the president has been striking sort of a defiant tone both in his weekly address, also remember when he addressed that interfaith service in boston on thursday highlighting the resilience of not only boston but america as a whole, and that's really part of his main message in his weekly address which was released today. take a little business of a listen to what he had to say. >> through the day that is would test even the sturdiest of souls, boston's spirit remains unyou don'ted. america's spirit remains undimmed. our faith in each other, our love for this country, our common creed that cuts across whatever superficial differences we may have, that's what makes
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us strong. that's why we endure. >> reporter: alex, we have seen the president go into an all-too-familiar role which is sort of the consoler in chief. we saw him assume this role, of course, after the newtown shootings, the shootings in tucson, arizona. he took on a similar role, of course, this week. but when he came out to speak last night, he also gave some indication into what he had instructed lawmakers to do and federal officials to do moving forward which was to really answer some key questions, including, of course, what motivated these two young men to take these actions and then also were they working with anyone else? were there any accompliceaccomp? we are being told according to senior administration officials with whom i've spoken, federal officials, the national security team will be in contact with their counterparts overseas as they begin to try to answer some of those key questions. alex? >> kristin welker at the white
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house. thanks. >> reporter: thanks. why london will be center stage tomorrow in light of the boston bombing. we have a live report next. [ female announcer ] your smile.
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over to london now on the eve of the world's largest marathon. that's right. the world's largest marathon. 36,000 runners will compete tomorrow. officials are significantly boosting security measures fogle this week's attack in boston. nbc is joining me from london. what can you tell us about all these extra security plans considering everything that's happened this week? >> hey, alex, good afternoon. london's police said they increased the number of officers out on the route by 40%. that also would be more sniffer dogs out. remember, they have a 26 mile course through london that they need to protect. that's wide open, attracting hundreds of thousands of spectators, and everyone is thinking about what happened in boston. not just in terms of security
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arrangements, but also the competitors who have been telling me tomorrow they'll be racing for boston's victims. >> reporter: the london marathon winds around some of the city's greatest landmarks, buckingham palace, big ben, and tower bridge. 36,000 people will take part and despite the boston attacks, they're more determined than ever. >> i think it inspires you more. you're just not going to let people put fear into you. bostonians are pretty resilient and, you know, we're going to move on. become stronger. >> reporter: tens of thousands of people are expected to line the course cheering on the runners. security preparations have been under way all week, but since boston the number of officers have been increased by 40% and london's police have been in close contact with the fbi. >> the most important thing that there is no link between the boston marathon and the london marathon. however, people need to feel reassured on sunday when they come out to see their friends, family, and beloved, and that's very important to us. they can see a high visibility
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of police on the streets. >> reporter: not just on the streets. london is one of the most watched over cities in the world with hundreds of thousands of cameras recording every move. but organizers are determined to keep the marathon fun like last year prince harry will hand out medals to the winners. tatiana mcfadden could be amok them. she won the boston women's wheelchair race and she's competed in london as well saying the city will be in her heart. >> running for london i'm going to be dedicating the race to the people in boston and it's about trying to show that, you know, we're not going to let this event win. >> before the start of tomorrow's race there will be a 30-second silence and organizers promising every competitor who make it is over the finish line, they will donate $3 to the boston victims fund because this has really dominated the news over here all week. just look at some of the today's headlines. you can see this one here, the hunt with some of those dramatic
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images from yesterday's siege. and on the front of "the guardian" dead and alive with the two suspects taking center page. there really has been an outpouring of support for the people of boston and a lot of relief that it is finally over. alex? >> the indomitable human spirit, pretty darn inspiring. thank you very much. turning now to some other stories making news today. officials have a firm body count in the texas town of west. 14 people were killed in that explosion you're seeing right there. more than 200 injured. this happened at a fertilizer plant on wednesday night. the blast devastated homes, schools, and a nursing home within a four to five-block radius. officials say money is what everyone needs right now. >> we've hit the saturation point on receiving stuff, clothes, food, those kind of things and we're running out of places to put it. >> it's still not known what caused that massive blast. the man accused of mailing
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ricin to the president and a u.s. senator has appeared in federal court. paul kevin curtis is charged with threatening the president and others. police spent much of friday searching his home. curtis faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted though he claims he's innocent. 156 people are dead, more than 5500 injured after a powerful earthquake in china. it happened in the shesh wan province. the u.s. geological survey put it at a magnitude of 6.6. it toppled buildings and triggered landslides. a judge in slislamabad orded musharraf to be held. he calls the charges against him politically motivated. the boston lockdown, how one of the busiest cities in this country became a ghost town. son. i go to angie's list to gauge whether or not the projects will be done in a timely fashion
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new signs that life is beginning to return to normal in boston. the red sox play the kansas city royal in just about 20 minutes or so in fenway after last night's game was post poped. the bruins face the pittsburgh penguins this avenue. for a time the manhunt for the suspected bomber paralyzed boston, in fact for hours it did that. turning one of the largest metropolitan areas across this country into a virtual ghosttown. joining me "washington post" senior correspondent kevin sullivan. with a welcome to you, kevin, we're talking about a million people here. how was it possible to lock down this city? >> it was absolutely remarkable. i talked to the historian from the fbi yesterday, and he said he can't remember ever a time when a major metropolitan city in the united states was locked down this completely. obviously the scale of 9/11 was bigger and we saw huge disruptions in washington and new york, but nothing like the empty streets and the absolute nothingness that we saw in boston yesterday. >> but is it because other major cities would be able to empty out on command like boston did
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or is it just the city of boston is better prepared to handle a crisis? i mean, it did it so successfully. >> well, i think probably every police department in the nation has thought about something like this happening and i'm sure they have contingency plans for it, but you also have to remember that it snows a lot in boston and a lot of people told me yesterday it's like a snow day except it's 75 degrees. it's a city that's used to being disrupted on very short notice. and they did it with great grace yesterday. >> yeah, and they also -- it's a city that has a very concentrated geographical area. i'm thinking of a city like los angeles with its sprawl and it's lack of significant mass transit. that would be an entire different situation, don't you think? >> it sure would. yesterday they did a great job getting the word out with reverse 911 calls. i talked to a lot of people at 6:30, 6:45 yesterday morning. they got a recorded call from the police telling them they should shelter in home, stay in their houses, not go to work. about an hour later they got
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another call with a description of the suspects which is pretty remarkable way to get the word out. >> how about financially? i mean, how much do you think this city was hurt by this and how quickly will boston be able to recover? >> well, i think they'll recover very quickly. but imagine the cost of this yesterday. nobody bought a hotdog oar a pair of shoes or insurance policy. you mentioned the red sox and the bruins not playing. that's the real sack are -- sacrilege in boston. but i didn't talk to anyone who complained about anything like that. everybody i talked to said we understand why this is happening, no problem. you know, people were cleaning their kitchens and washing their cars and trying to make the best of a bad situation. >> so you think there's no lingering fear anymore? people are putting this in perspective and moving forward today? >> i think so. that's the sense we got from everybody we talked to yesterday. once they got these guys, i think there was a sigh of relief and everybody said, okay, back
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to work and back to our lives. >> okay. kevin sullivan, thank you very much for joining us. >> my pleasure. new observations from a neighbor of the tsarnaevs about how the oldest brother changes over the course of the past year. ten hut! you up for the challenge suds-maker? i'm gonna need more than that to get through the rest of these dishes! i want more suds! dawn? you won't last. [ female announcer ] a drop of dawn has active suds that stay stronger longer, so you can clean 2x more greasy dishes. to get the job done. you're full of suds after all. now drop and give me twenty spaghetti bowls! [ female announcer ] dawn does more. [ sponge ] so it's not a chore.
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♪ or just go to e-trade and save it. boom. ♪ new information today in the boston terror case. why was the fbi investigating the older tsarnaev brother back in 2011? plus, interrogating the surviving brother. why won't authorities read him his rights? and police pay a visit to the father of accused boston bombers. hello, everyone. welcome to "weekends with alex wi witt." let's get to what's happening as we have new questions today surrounding the suspects in the boston terror attack, including when one suspect was first brought to the attention of authorities. 19-year-old dzhokhar tsarnaev is in a boston hospital after authorities nabbed him late
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yesterday. a justice department official says he will not be read his miranda rights before he's questioned by a special interrogation team. new today, the president focused his weekly address on boston. >> if anyone wants to know who we are, what america is, how we respond to evil and terror, that's it. selflessly, compassionately, and unafraid. through the days that would test even the sturdiest of souls, boston's spirit remains undaunted. >> tsarnaev's older brother, 26-year-old tamerlan, was killed early friday in a shootout with police. he was reportedly brought to the attention of the fbi and investigated back in 2011. and an update on all those injured in monday's boston marathon bombing. 53 patients remain in the hospital which is down one from yesterday, and the total number of patients in critical condition is now three. good news there. it is down from six. suspect number two, dzhokhar
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tsarnaev, is in the boston hospital and ron allen is joining me from there. so, ron, any update, any inkling about his condition at this point or are they still staying pretty mum on that? >> nothing official as of yet and you can understand why they're trying to keep everything about this situation right now as quiet as possible. we know he arrived here alive obviously, that he was conscious, although there's information he was very incoherent when authorities were trying to talk to him. we know he was wounded at some point during the process but we don't know during the 20 hours that he was essentially a fugitive on the run when he may have been injured and how badly he was injured. we do know that from sources that he apparently lost a significant amount of blood and we know from the resident who found him in the boat hiding, that there was also a pool of blood there and he apparently followed a trail of blood to discover that that's where the suspect had hidden. so not a lot of information now, but authorities are waiting to
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the moment when they can begin talking to him and you can bet that the moment that he is coherent and able to, they will begin questioning him about a wide range of things about this whole series of incidents. >> ron, do you know if there were any explosive devices of any type that were found on his person or with him when he was caught in that boat? >> reporter: no, we don't know, and it doesn't appear that there was. and i only say that based on a picture that emerged that showed him being administered to, an oxygen mask being put on his face that was -- that we saw just after the capture of the suspect. so, again, not a lot of information about that, and we also know there was an exchange of gunfire between the suspect and authorities, but that happened about an hour or so before he was actually captured. so was he wounded in that exchange? was he wounded earlier? we don't know. but, again, basic information,
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we know he arrived in serious condition based on what the boston police commissioner said at the briefing, but when he will be able to talk, when investigators will actually begin really interrogating him is unclear. >> yeah. you know, ron, i want to ask my director quickly to put that picture back up that we were talking about, the one where you mentioned that he's being administered to, being given oxygen, there it is, if you're looking at that, ron, is that a protective vest? can we tell if that's what's been taken snauf that would certainly indicate he had no ied strapped to him or that there were any bombs in the area. can you tell what that is right in the foreground? >> reporter: no, alex, and i really am very hesitant to speculate about what that may or may not be. we really don't know. we believe that this is a picture of him being administered to and i'm not even sure exactly what is happening in that picture or how long after his capture it is taken. it was authenticated but we don't know a lot about what's
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happening and it's really -- this is such a very sensitive case. it's really difficult to speculate and i'm hesitant to speculate about what's going on there. suffice it to say he arrived in very serious condition. we know there was a lot of gunfire exchanged. we presume that he was -- we know that he was swhat somewhat incoherent but conscious when the police confronted him. what that initial confrontation would have been like, it would be interesting to know, but it would appear he in some way came out of the boat, was coaxed to come out of the boat. it doesn't sound like there was a huge exchange of gunfire at the moment when he was captured. again, we're waiting to see when we'll know some of those details. >> certainly will. blood loss would render him incoherent. ron allen outside of beth israel. thank you. i'm joined by nbc news national
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investigative correspondent michael isikoff. i want to pick up on something we talked about last hour when i asked you whether officials think there were accomplices to this crime. we know that authorities stopped that train, the amtrak train that left from south station. i believe they stopped near westport, connecticut, yesterday. they were looking for accomplices. searched the train, let it go. end of story or is this still an avenue they're investigating? >> well, look, it's clearly an ongoing investigation and we could learn more this afternoon when we're expecting we may see the first criminal charges in this case. what we're expecting is a criminal complaint and an affidavit, and one of the things to look for is to see whether tsarnaev, whether they say and others, which is the kind of language you often see in criminal charges. he acted with others to commit this crime. so that will give us some tip-off as to whether they suspect there were any other accomplices. right now we're not aware of
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any, and right now -- and late yesterday they were saying there was nobody else they were looking for. if they were aware of any particular suspects, that's a good indication they were not aware of any criminal suspects in the case late yesterday. now, on top of that -- so we're going to have the criminal charges today we hope, and that will give us some further information. there's also a lot more details we're learning about what was known about these suspects before the bombing itself. the fbi confirmed today that tamerlan tsarnaev, the older brother, now dead, had been investigated for possible islamic radical activity as long as -- as early as 2011 after the fbi got a report from the russian foreign intelligence service suspecting -- reporting suspected radical islamic jihadi
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activity. now, the fbi questioned him. they questioned friends. they questioned family members and found no evidence of a crime and there the matter lay. in january 2012 tsarnaev, this is the older one, flies to russia, spends six months there, returns, and then we understand that the fbi questioned him again after getting a follow-up report from russian intelligence. again, nothing came of it. there was no evidence of any criminal activity and the matter lay. but right after that tsarnaev sets up this youtube account in august of 2012 which is filled with radical jihadi postings and videos. again, that's not evidence of a crime. there's no grounds to arrest somebody for setting up a youtube based on what they post on their youtube account. but it does raise questions as far as last week when the fbi begins the boston marathon bombing investigation, did they come back to him as a potential
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suspect? did they look through their database about what they had on him, what they did not, and then when they got the photo on thursday night, were they able to -- were there efforts to match that photo up with whatever photos would have been in u.s. government databases both from the fbi and state department travel records because tsarnaev did take that six-month trip to russian in 2012. >> with your reporting, is there any indication as to the time when investigators became aware of this youtube account with these jihadist and sympathetic sort of sentiments being launched? you say that happened about three weeks after he returned in july of last year from being abroad for six months. did they know that then or -- >> this is the sort of -- >> i mean -- >> that's one of the questions -- that's one of the questions we don't know the answer to, and, remember, this raises all sorts of civil liberties issues. about how much monitoring the
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fbi should do of online social media accounts absent evidence of criminal activity. you get into very touchy questions there. so here you have somebody who was on their radar screen because russian intelligence had reported suspicions about him. they questioned him. they found no evidence of criminal activity. should they have continued to monitor him? should they have continued to look at whatever social media or youtube postings he makes? not easy questions to answer. but certainly ones that are going to get asked. now, we also have, by the way, the interview really revealing interview this morning that savannah guthrie did with the uncle of tsarnaev saying that somebody had brainwashed him, somebody had radicalized him. he was under the influence of others. now, the uncle did not illuminate who it was, it was not clear he knew, but that's a further indication that there
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were suspicions at least within his own family of outside incompetent influences. >> all right. well, we may take a clip of savannah's interview later on this hour. in the meantime, i guess you can say all this hindsight is 20/20. thank you for your heshg lercul effort talking over the traffic. but i guess considering the ghost town yesterday, it's a good thing. thanks, michael. the father of the tsarnaev brothers apparently had some explaining to do to police in russia. we have a report from moscow next. you can't say 'one size fits all'. it doesn't. that's crazy. we're all totally different. ishares core. etf building blocks for your personalized portfolio. find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus, which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. read and consider it carefully before investing. risk includes possible loss of principal.
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the investigation into the boston bombing is also ongoing in a different part of the world. nbc's adrian mong has the view from moscow. >> reporter: the official reaction in russia has been very supportive of boston and the u.s. in general.
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the kremlin said this morning that it has agreed to work more closely with the white house to fight terrorism. and russian president vladimir putin has expressed his condolences on behalf of the russian people. but the parents of the two suspects living in dagestan outside russia have said that they believe that their sons were set up. and the mother has specifically accused the fbi of harassing the family regularly she says because they're ethnic chechens. the family have lived in dagestan. the patients have been there for the last few years. this is a small russian republic which borders iran with a population of 3 million. it is a lace that's known for its very troubled and violent relationship with moscow, especially with the neighboring country. both of these places have been responsible -- have generated groups that have been responsible for terrorist
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attacks in russia itself and, of course, there have been the two chechen wars since the breakup of the soviet union. it's believed a local television station said that the father was actually taken into custody last night for questioning by the russian intelligence, but he was released a few hours later. back to you. >> okay. adrienne mong, thank you. tamerlan tar nsarnaev had already popped up on the fbi's radar. roger cressey joins me. good to see you. >> you, too, alex. >> we know back in 2011 the fbi was asked by a foreign government to investigate tamerlan. he was preparing to travel to join some underground groups reportedly. how unusual is it for a foreign government to make a request like this? >> it is unusual at all. it's a little unique when the russians do it and that's what make this is so different
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because if it's a western ally with a level of cooperation we have with intelligence sharing and law enforcement cooperation, there's a more, if you will, open and relaxed exchange of information. but certainly when the russians are asking about someone who might be related to the chechen conflict, while we'll go through our process to see if there's any information there, in the back of the mind of the government has to be what would the russians do with this information? given their tremendous amount of internal strife and civil war that's been involved in the chechen region. that's not to say we wouldn't share anything. we certainly would and, of course, we didn't come up with any information right now, but this element of what the russian intelligence service, what the security service, the fsb knew about tsarnaev, the older brother's travel in 2012 in russia will be a big question the united states is going to ask the russian federation. >> that's important to know. russia asks the united states back in 2011, check this guy out. he gets checked out. they presumably give whatever
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information back to russia but he's deemed to be an all-clear from our perspective. then you have this six-month trip from january to july. should that have raised significant flags based on already looking at him? >> well, as you said in your prior segment, hindsight is 20/20, and we always need to understand that there are priority targets that the u.s. counterterrorism community are looking at and there are other targets of interesting. sr. n tsarnaev is yet to be identified as a target of interest by the united states prior to what happened on monday. the federal security service in russia is extremely good. it would be unusual to think that after they raise questions with the fbi about this individual, once he arrived in russia, if they did not have some sort of surveillance on him, some sort of way of monitoring or following his actions for part if not all of those six months. so as part of the counterterrorism cooperation that the russian federation has
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pledged the united states right now, this question and getting the answer to this question is going to be at the top of the agenda, i believe. >> some gop senators put out a statement today, roger. it was regarding the surviving suspect and it says the suspect based on his actions clearly is a good candidate for the status of enemy combatant. we do not want this suspect to remain silent. how much of a difference does it make if he is tried in a civilian court versus being labeled an enemy combatant? >> well, those two statements need to be parsed. yes, he could be a good candidate for enemy combatant status and, yes, we do not want him to remain silent. but treating him as an enemy combatant does not guarantee he's going to talk. we need to be careful about not getting into this argument too deeply and giving a life of its own. there are people on the hill, real thoughtful and smart senators, who care about national security, who have a very strong view about enemy
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combatant status, but the obama administration has tremendous experience in the prosecution of terrorist suspects. they've looked at this issue and i'm completely confident they're going to do it through a federal court and you're not going to see the enemy combatant issue become a major issue for the obama administration. >> roger, the fact they are putting this special safety categorization right now, the saturday for the greater community, how long can that last? is there a time frame in which it will expire and they must mirandize him, get him an attorney if he wants one? >> well, i trust what pete williams says on these things and there is a period of time, 36 to 48 hours. it's somewhat fudgible. it will defend when aware enough and coherent enough to begin to answer questions. but remember, the exception is about imminent threat. does he know of any other terrorist plots? has he planted any other devices? it's about the immediate safety and security of american citizens. and once law enforcement has
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concluded that is not an issue anymore based on his questions, they'll then move on to what will be the traditional questioning and interrogation within the constructs of the civilian law system. >> that's to figure out what went down in all this, but how do investigators begin determining whether or not they were part of a larger terrorist organization? >> well, as we've heard earlier, the high value interrogation group is comprised of an interagency group of individuals with tremendous experience in interrogating and questioning individuals like tsarnaev who is in custody right now. they will begin that process. they'll certainly find other information from the cell phone calls, from computers, from questioning of relatives and acquaintances. bring all that and present and begin an exchange to get the answers from tsarnaev when he's ready to give them. and i believe he will give them. >> roger, last question, based on your experience in this area,
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how likely do you think it is that there were accomplices of some sort? i mean, when you look at the magnitude of what they were able to accomplish, the way they were evading police for so long, do you think someone helped them? >> so, alex, this i think is a really important question, not that there's another plot or there are other potential attacks planned. it's just that if these two individuals could do all of this by themselves, self-contained, and did not act in a way that would raise red flags with their family, friends, or others, that's a chilling conclusion because that self-contained ability is something that if we see elsewhere, it makes it incredibly difficult for law enforcement to identify potential attackers before they attack. where we have seen examples of plots disrupted inside the united states, there's usually been somebody who has tipped off federal law enforcement based on things they've seen or heard. so in some respects, i hope there are a couple other individuals who wittingly or
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unwittingly were involved because if it truly is self-coin taned, that's a real troubling development. >> i see exactly what you mean there. nbc terrorism analyst roger cressey. it's a scene of devastation that will become even more apparent. up next a live report from west, texas. wait a sec! i found our colors. we've made a decision. great, let's go get you set up... you need brushes... you should check out our workshops... push your color boundaries while staying well within your budget walls.
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turn it up! [ male announcer ] in a clinical study, over 80% of treated men had their t levels restored to normal. talk to your doctor about all your symptoms. get the blood tests. change your number. turn it up. androgel 1.62%. it was a foreign government that first asked the fbi to investigate tamerlan tsarnaev two years ago. why didn't that yield any clues and how often does the fbi get asked to do some digging for another country? we'll talk about that? just a bit. we want to turn our attention to west, texas, where officials have begun a search and recovery effort after this week's deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant. this is all that's left of the fertilizer plant and some surrounding homes completely decimated. 14 people are dead, about 200 others suffered injuries. charles hadlock is in west, texas, for us. at what point did officials end
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the search and the rescue effort and move on to the next phase of search and recovery? >> reporter: it was late yesterday everything governor rick perry held a news conference in which he said it had turned to a search and recovery effort. texas task force one, the elite search and rescue team here in texas, has pulled out of here. they packed up their expensive gear and have headed back to texas a&m their home base. the search and rescue is over. it's now a means of search and recovery right now. 14 people are dead. that is the death toll that has stood since late yesterday. among the dead are six local volunteer firefighters, four paramedics, and a dallas firefighter who just happened to live in west and headed to the smoke and fire as he saw it. alex? >> well, that's extraordinary, which means that the explosion itself may have killed some working there but then those who went to help, the rescue
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workers, the ones that really lost so many in their ranks. i'm curious, charles, when you look at all the devastation and you're looking at these property -- i guess these lots that are just gone, what happens to these people? are there plans in place for them to return to something or live in temporary housing? >> reporter: well, i got to tell you, even beyond that, a ten-block area has been cordoned off by officials since the night of the blast, and people want to get back to their homes. they want to see what's going on, and they're very frustrated at state and local officials, a, because they can't get back, b, they're not getting any information from authorities here. in fact, they were supposed to have a briefing this morning. we're now told it will perhaps be another two hours before there's a briefing, and yet people still can't get into the area. and the news media has not been allowed to see the devastation since the night of the blast when the helicopters were circling above. those have all been chased away by regulations now. they can't fly over the scene to get a closer look. we don't know why.
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we don't know if there's still a danger there. we don't know if it's still considered a crime scene or if they simply just don't want people to see it. >> do we know what caused the explosion? >> reporter: the lead investigator on this is the federal atf. they're also being helped by the state fire marshals office. they don't know what caused the fire. at least they're not saying yet and they don't know what caused the explosion, what triggered the ammonium nitrate explosion at the west fertilizer plant. >> thank you, charles. the questioning of the younger boston terror suspect will be handled in such a way that investigators say will help them get more information out of him. that's still ahead.
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welcome back to weekends with alex width. it's 31 past the hour. take a listen to what a former neighbor said when asked if he remembered the suspected terrorist. >> it was the older one was more friendly type. he would say hello and how are
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you. the younger one never really noticed him. the kids really looked religious or anything at all. now, the parents went back about a year ago and tamerlan all of a sudden starts sporting that classical -- i shouldn't say that but taliban type look, big beard, headgear, traditional clothing, and he was going like that for a year and a month ago i saw him cleanly shaven again, european clothes and i go like, wow, he's back into his usual routine. so that was interesting. >> interesting indeed. joining me to put this into perspective, clint van zandt. clint, what do you make of this, the fact that hammer ltamerlan more talkative of two, that he dresses in a manner that would befit a stereotype of someone who is becoming religiously involved in islam and the like, and then a month ago changes his outlook. >> yeah.
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i think he's the one we're trying to understand. i can understand the suspected terrorist 19-year-old we have in custody right now. he's described as almost being a puppy to his older brother. his brother not only is the older brother but he's the father figure. so, you know, i got that. but for the older brother, you know, part of this, alex, may date back to 2009. he had an argument with a girlfriend. you know, he was a boxer, and his girlfriend would come to the ring and she would kind of push him and shove him. one day he just allegedly shoved her or hit her. she filed charges against him. when he filed an application to become a u.s. citizen because of that domestic violence charge against him, that was part of the reason that he was denied the ability to become a u.s. citize citizen. because he couldn't become a citizen, he couldn't box in the golden glove finals because that would be representative in the olympics and, of course, he
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wasn't a u.s. citizen. so some are suggesting that all of this anger and rage is a combination of being upset in 2009 that he was denied citizenship and then this alleged radicalization, this newfound religion, and why did he clean up his act a month or two ago? well, if you're going to carry this out, and i would suggest they had planned it for at least a couple of months, you would want to fit in. you would want to look like everybody else, and if you were wearing traditional muslim garb, you might not fit in. but a baseball cap, a jacket, a backpack, you look just like everybody else. so i think this was part of an ongoing plan based in anger and rage and a desire for retribution. >> clint, i'm sure you've heard the reports that he was married. we're talking about tamerlan now. he was married. he was married to an american girl, a western girl, that he would spend the weekends with her family at their home up in
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rhode island. he had a 3-year-old daughter about whom he was reportedly, you know, crazy. in a good way. loved his daughter. so how does that sit with this man who is accused of doing these terrible things? >> well, this is somebody who led two lives. realize, your point is that he wasn't with that wife and daughter, and, you know, i think if we get down and i'm sure the fbi will, interview the wife, interview the wife's family if she's around, i think we're going to find out that there was an aspect of his personality that they never understood, they never knew, they never saw. you know, alex, a lot of us wear masks sometimes as to who we are. some of us never take that mask off and never reveal the rest of our character. i think this is one of those guys. >> interesting. so were you to be involved, clint, in the fbi investigation, what would be the first thing
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you would ask? >> well, we're fortunate that we've got, as you probably know, the high value interrogation team. that is a group of fbi, cia, state department, and military interrogators, interviewers, translators. they've got all the language skills. they've got all the country skills, and these men and women are the best of the best. so they will sit down, they will attempt to develop some type of working rapport. they will indicate some type of understanding of that relationship between siblings. they'll talk about some of them are from other countries and they have that relationship with another country, but what we're trying to get down to is the obvious, are there any other devices out there that we should know about as far as explosive devices? is there anybody else working with you? and did you and your brother do this out of your own influence? were you -- did you get the idea from somebody else or were you
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under the control of somebody else? these are questions that we're going to ask very quickly because the clock is running on whether we mirandize him or not, and we want to get this in as quick as we can. >> you know, reports that tamerlan had some military training of some sort. do you think that extends to dzhokhar or you had described him early as a puppy dog following his older brother around. do you think that's more what this was? >> i think that six months where he went back to russia and went back to chechnya, i think there's at least a 50/50 chance he went to some type of terroristic or radicalized-type camp. now, to learn to build these devices. now, could alex and clint go on the internet and learn to build these, too? i think we could. but if you look at the other ieds they had, the hand grenades, the pipe bombs, as well as the pressure cooker bombs, that's more likely somebody who has been to a
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school and where would that school likely be taught? chechnya is a hot bed for terroristic activities. the chechnyans have used bombs for years in terroristic type activities. i think there's a good chance he went to school for those six months and came back a somewhat sophisticated bombmaker. >> okay. clint van zandt, many thanks for your insights. one of the main questions stemming from the capture of dzhokhar is why he wasn't read his miranda rights. a bit earlier we talked about defense attorney and former prosecutor karen de soto and nbc news analyst kendall coffee on why this is the case. >> this public safety exception, how long has that been in kist an existence? >> it was recognized in the 1980s, but it's clear that in the last couple years the obama administration wants to take a broader view of it with respect to terrorism cases. you may recall the case involving the so-called
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christmas day bomber, the underwear bomber who was apparently not questioned at any length and was quickly mirandized. that got a firestorm of criticism from some senators, mostly republican senators, and since that time the obama administration, the attorney general, have been moving toward more aggressive views of what they can do under the public safety exception. and even without changing the law, it has a fair amount of breadth in the sense if you ask overlapping questions, questions that could be eliciting evidence of guilt but that also could be trying to explore links to other terrorists, linking to perhaps other explosives that might have been there, other activity that's dangerous activity that might be under way, they can get a fair number of questions asked and they could go on for hours before any mirandizing has to take place. >> and as we have been reporting this hour, criminal charges could be filed as early as today. joining me now, msnbc analyst and former hostage negotiator,
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james cavanagh. with a welcome back to you, james, the fbi reportedly has investigated the older brother, tamerlan, back in 2011. have you heard anything more about this and what do you make of what they looked at? >>, i think they got the foreign request. it's probably from russia, chechnya. this guy is involved in, you know, radical al qaeda-style activity. you know, you need to look at him. and i'm sure they get many of those, and they looked at it. they went to his probably, you know, papers, immigration papers, they went through his computer communications that they can, that they're legally allowed to that may go overseas, whatever they could glean, and they look at it, and then what they do is do an interview. and sit down with the guy, try to assess, look at him. is he employed, does he have a job, who is he? what's he doing? how does he respond to the
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agents' questions and apparently they didn't uncover anything big that made them continue. apparently they asked the -- pete williams reported they asked the russian authorities for more information which they never got. you know, one thing that's curious -- i don't i don't think there's necessarily anything bad there. it may be just they didn't develop anything which happens in many cases. but, you know, one question is when this picture came up on tuesday, you know, maybe somebody in the fbi who interviewed the guy would have recognized him or possibly maybe somebody who interviewed the guy didn't see it or wasn't there or was transferred out. if you'd interviewed the guy, maybe raise a question in your mind, i think that's this guy. of course, i understand he's wearing sun zblglasses and a ha it might not have come right back to you. but they didn't have any success internally not only with the fbi but other federal agents and police so that's when they went public with the picture. >> i'm curious, james, you get a heads up from a foreign
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government, check this guy out. you check him out and presumably there's nothing there of substance. does that mean people like that are just taken off the radar or do they stay on the radar? what is the criteria for staying on the radar? >> there's not going to be necessarily any kind of total constant surveillance of the person. nobody has the man power to do those kind of things. and secondly, we're not a police state. so that's not going to happen. but there can be some periodic checking in. this is a parallel to lee harvey oswald. lee harvey oswald came up on the radar for the fbi because he lived in russia. and they had an agent named hosty in dallas who interviewed oswald. he sort of questioned him, what are you going to russia for, what are you doing in moscow? you know, it's half-heartedly to find out what he's doing. the other part maybe recruit him as an agent to infiltrate for
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you. because the fbi has a counterintelligence -- here is the fbi interviewing this guy. it's pretty routine for them, too. they didn't know he was going to harm the president, but that's what happens. they're so deeply involved, they touch a lot of things. >> yeah. all right, james, thanks so much for your insights. the mother of the tsarnaev brothers is speaking out and she has quite a conspiracy theory in mind. [ male announcer ] this is joe woods' first day of work. and his new boss told him two things -- cook what you love, and save your money. joe doesn't know it yet, but he'll work his way up
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as the investigation unfolds, we're hearing more about the tsarnaev brothers from those who knew them best. in a telephone interview the mother says she has no doubt her sons are innocent of the bombings. >> i am sure, i am like 100% sure that this is a setup. my two sons are really innocent. he never told me that he would be like on the side of jihad and whatever they are talking, whatever is talking about him being a loser, my son would
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never do this. my son -- it's a setup. >> a setup. there's no word when the parents of the tsarnaev brothers will arrive in the united states to stand by their son. so what could drive these brothers to such shocking violence? joining me now is robert pape from the university of chicago and director of the chicago project of security and terrorism. robert, i'm awfully glad you're here. i guess from what we know about these two, you hear one version of what the interpretation is of them from mother moththeir moth their father. slightly different from the uncle. >> the profile we have is of homegrown terrorists, homegrown terrorists willing to take their life. i just want to give -- give their life for the cause. these are not the normal kind of terrorists we see. we see many terrorists around the world, many suicide terrorists around the world. 90% of those are driven by
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national causes related to the local areas they come from. so, of course, it would make sense here to start with chechnya as a background. what is it about chechnya that might have led these individuals to do it? but we're probably looking in the wrong place. when we look at chechnya, what we see right off the bat is the united states, the extent it's been involved at all, has been critical of the russian government and their human rights abuses in chechnya. if we look at the chechen rebel leaders, they have not singled out america and americans as a target for death. they do single out others for targets to kill, the russians. and further, when we look at the pro-chechen independence websites, what we see is commentary on the boston bombers, but they call them strange, meaning distancing. >> but, rockbert, it seems we kw about theed a ver tearal relationship they may have with
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russia, bombing attacks, terrorism attacks in moscow but to flip everything and turn it to boston. >> right. and that's why the particular issues of chechnya probably are not the root cause. when we look at other homegrown terrorist cells such as the july 2005 london bombers, the four who killed 52 people in london, we see a different pattern. we see a pattern where essentially those were a group of friends, they were friends before they were terrorists. here we have brothers. brothers who were brothers before they were terrorists. when we see the london bombers, what we see is they were very angry about political issues related to kindred populations, muslims around the world they believed were facing injustice in iraq, afghanistan, and elsewhere. that kind of perceived injustice to kin grdred populations we ha also seen in other homegrown
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radicalized terrorists, and this could well be the motive that we find here. >> okay. university of chicago's robert pape, thank you so much for your insights. one item that particularly caught my eye in all the boston bombing coverage, this headline in "the washington post." after boston, why the terrorists can't win. i will talk with the author of that column. there is no mass produced human. there is no mass produced so we created the extraordinarily comfortable sleep number experience. a collection of innovations designed around the only bed with dualair technology that allows you to adjust to the support your body
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all over the city cheering and waving the american flag, it was epitomized by the "washington post" before the attackers were caught, titled simply, why the terrorists won't win. joining me now is the man who wrote that piece, a staff writer for the "washington post." joel with a welcome, explain the title of the article. why won't the terrorists win?
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>> you saw it last night with that incredible moment after the suspect was captured. i think we were all bostonian there is a minute, the whole city celebrated that moment. i think with these kinds of attacks, yes, they rattle us momentarily, also bring us together, stories of heroism and people helping each other. people rushing to you know, the smoke, where the explosion was. people you have never seen in your life, suddenly, there they are in the newspaper, they are heroes, carrying people gravely wounded to ambulances. i think in a lot of ways, these events, as horrible as they are, they bring us together not just the community but the whole country. getting back to the head lines, i wrote that headline, not even sure what it would mean for the terrorists to win. i don't know what these two guys wanted. maybe someone smarter has figured out exactly what the
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agenda was here, but it just seems like it was a desire to kill innocent people. you know, i -- if there's a deeper ideology behind it, we will find that out, but these people are an existential. >> we are looking at pictures of boston red sox fans, the most rabid in the world, but the placards, the signs they are holding is about be strong, not the red sox team, but literally the city of boston being strong. this is the resilience that americans have and show in the face of whatever comes our way, it seems. >> yeah. you know, people say the world resilience is overused. i think it's a great word. i think it's not just terror. we have actually seep, you know, these hurricanes hitting us and events, natural disasters. you know, what makes a country strong is how resilient it is
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after a disaster of some kind and how good are we at picking ourselves back up on our feet? i close that column with 78-year-old guy who we all saw got knocked on his feet by the blast anticipatd he finished th. >> look at this picture, on the ground, clearly injured. these three cops are right there. i mean, it's a strange concept to see that happen. >> what a photograph. that was an amazing photograph. that guy got up and finished the race, 78 years old. and so and getting back to this specific event, looks like maybe not exactly a lone wolf, you have two people involved and perhaps the older brother went overseas for training or something but this is a pretty crude attack, makeshift bombs that cost $100 worth of
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materials. i think americans understand that they have to go through their lives and not cower at home, unless ordered to by the governor. >> and i have to tell you, you have a -- just going to quote bill iffing from the end of your article, terrorists, whatever they are, i don't have much use for them. >> common sense. >> thanks for your time. good note which to end the show. that is a wrap of "weekends with alex witt." see you back here at noon eastern. up next, craig melvin. have a good one, everyone. [ shapiro ] at legalzoom, you can take care of virtually
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